Windows 10 . Anybody downloaded it yet?

[chrisf]

I've had 8.1 since I changed my laptop about 18 months ago.  It was a bit of a leap from XP but works fine for me save for one thing.  I have an Epson printer/copier/scanner.  When I had the old laptop and its trusty XP I was able to save scanned documents in PDF format.  I can no longer do this  because Epson have not written the necessary driver and told me that they have no plans to do so.  Fat chance of them doing it for 10 on that form - unless anyone knows any different.

 

Chris

[BG John]

I've had 8.1 since I changed my laptop about 18 months ago.  It was a bit of a leap from XP but works fine for me save for one thing.  I have an Epson printer/copier/scanner.  When I had the old laptop and its trusty XP I was able to save scanned documents in PDF format.  I can no longer do this  because Epson have not written the necessary driver and told me that they have no plans to do so.  Fat chance of them doing it for 10 on that form - unless anyone knows any different.

 

Chris

That's one of the main things that puts me off upgrades. This one might be free, but not when the potential cost of replacing old hardware that either won't work, or loses functionality, is taken into account. Plus old software that may not work, and all the time and hassle it can cause messing around trying to get other things to work.

[Austrag]

I have a notification that it is there ready for  my 64 bit laptop but I am not convinced yet. My main is still chuntering along. Meanwhile, I have been saving the press releases on the titbits making the install easier. BUT, today the latest info worries me.

 

"" It also seems Microsoft keeps sending data to its servers via its Live Tiles. Windows 10 seems to download new tile info from Microsoft even if you clear all the tiles from the Start menu, and it uses unencrypted HTTP to do so. Ars argues that while the requests do not contain any identifying information, they shouldn't be made in the first place since there’s no corresponding tile for them.

 

Furthermore, Microsoft might be collecting telemetry settings from Windows 10 machines even when such a feature is disabled.

 

More disturbingly, Windows 10 appears to be able to make requests to a content delivery network by bypassing any HTTP and HTTPS proxies that may be set up by the user to monitor Internet traffic.

 

Microsoft told Ars that whatever communication takes place between a Windows 10 computer and Microsoft is only there to facilitate the retrieval of updates.

 

“As part of delivering Windows 10 as a service, updates may be delivered to provide ongoing new features to Bing search, such as new visual layouts, styles and search code. No query or search usage data is sent to Microsoft, in accordance with the customer’s chosen privacy settings. This also applies to searching offline for items such as apps, files and settings on the device,” Microsoft said.

 

Ars says the statement is consistent with its findings. There is no query or search data transmitted. But at the same time the practice appears to be a bit on the shady side of business.

 

“[if] Web searching and Cortana are disabled, we suspect that the inference that most people would make is that searching the Start menu wouldn’t hit the Internet at all. But it does. The traffic could be innocuous, but the inclusion of a machine ID gives it a suspicious appearance,” Ars wrote.""

[RFS]

I have an Epson RX585 printer/copier/scanner that works fine on Windows 10.  If your device works fine on 8.1 then almost certainly the drivers will work for 10 too.  I upgraded from W7 and no drivers needed updating, although I had to re-install Epson scan.

Edited August 13, 2015 by RFS

[Butler Henderson]

I have a notification that it is there ready for  my 64 bit laptop but I am not convinced yet. My main is still chuntering along. Meanwhile, I have been saving the press releases on the titbits making the install easier. BUT, today the latest info worries me.

 

"" It also seems Microsoft keeps sending data to its servers

See the link I posted in earlier (message 142 in this thread)

[JCL]

I used Vuescan to replace my scanner software that wasn't supported many moons ago for the same reason. I remember it was pretty good.

 

http://www.hamrick.com/

 

Does that help?

[Austrag]

I have a notification that it is there ready for  my 64 bit laptop but I am not convinced yet. My main is still chuntering along. Meanwhile, I have been saving the press releases on the titbits making the install easier. BUT, today the latest info worries me.

 

"" It also seems Microsoft keeps sending data to its servers

 

 

I read that when it was posted, but now the plot thickens, they are saying that regardless of the switches we enact, Win 10 continues to keep the door wide open. David

[GoingUnderground]

Have upgraded 3 different PCs, a tablet that was on 8.1, a Netbook that started out on XP then 7, and a desktop that started life on XP Pro 32 Bit, then 7 Pro 64 Bit, and am very pleased with the results. 10 is so much easier to use on a tablet than 8.1, and there is only a small learning curve if going from 7 to 10. Drivers for older kit will always be a problem. But it might be possible to get round that by installing XP as a virtual machine using Hyper V, there are descriptions of how to do it on the web. Unfortunately my desktop doesn't fully support Hyper V, but my laptop, still on 7, should when its time comes.

 

I'm very impressed by 10, it really is 7 updated and slicked up to use apps as well as real bread and butter programs. I did have one problem with a missing driver for the netbook, but that was because the manufacturer, ASUS, had swapped from a driver to a utility. Installing the 8.1 version of the utility fixed the problem.

 

It is even possible to run 1980s 16 bit DOS programs on a Win 10 64bit machine using the third party freeware program vDOS, itself based on DOSBox. vDOS is meant for use with business type programs, and recommends that you use DOSBox for DOS games. So software that I first used on a Honeywell 286 laptop 30 years ago, along with Windows 286, can still be used on the latest machines running 10. 

[roundhouse]

2nd Acer tablet that I bought cheaply recently with Windows 8.1is now currently updating to 10.

 

However my newest and main use tablet an Hp one still can't update due to driver incompatibility which is frustrating as Windows 10 appear to be a lot better so far.

 

This weekend will try updating an all in one touch screen pc that gets used to run JMRI panels at shows.

[melmerby]

It seems the HDD I had Win 7/10 on was faulty and it has gone t*ts up hence the problem in the desktop, the drive seems to be unreadable and unrepairable. (this could account for the earlier problems I commented on in this thread):

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/101757-more-pc-problems-this-time-its-sata-drives/?p=1973813

 

I now have to install Win 10 on a new drive (which I have). the problem is the "upgrade" will only work if there is a working copy of Win 7.

Clean installs of Win 10 do not work, the product key for win 7 is not valid, Win 10 apparently updates that. Once Win 7 is gone you're stuffed!

 

I have posted on the MS Forum to see what comes up.

 

Keith

Edited August 14, 2015 by melmerby

[RFS]

It seems the HDD I had Win 7/10 on was faulty and it has gone t*ts up hence the problem in the desktop, the drive seems to be unreadable and unrepairable. (this could account for the earlier problems I commented on in this thread):

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/101757-more-pc-problems-this-time-its-sata-drives/?p=1973813

 

I now have to install Win 10 on a new drive (which I have). the problem is the "upgrade" will only work if there is a working copy of Win 7.

Clean installs of Win 10 do not work, the product key for win 7 is not valid, Win 10 apparently updates that. Once Win 7 is gone you're stuffed!

 

I have posted on the MS Forum to see what comes up.

 

Keith

The way to get round this is to re-install W7 first and make sure it's activated.  Then you can do the upgrade to W10.  Once that's done and activated (which it should do automatically) you can then do a clean install if you wish.

[Butler Henderson]

Theres a Win10 compatible version of Classic Shell now available for anyone wanting a more traditional start menu (things like Recent Documents)

 

www.classicshell.net

Edited August 14, 2015 by Butler Henderson

[melmerby]

The way to get round this is to re-install W7 first and make sure it's activated.  Then you can do the upgrade to W10.  Once that's done and activated (which it should do automatically) you can then do a clean install if you wish.

How do you do a clean install once the program is installed?

I had already upgraded and activated the "new" Win 10 installation before it went belly up but I couldn't get past the "enter key" page on a clean install of Win10

 

Keith

[RFS]

Once your W10 upgrade is complete and activated, your system details are recorded in the MS activation servers.  Now you can do a clean install and when it asks for the key just click on the "skip" button each time you are asked for a key.  Once the install is complete you should find you are automatically activated.  I've done a clean install this way on one of my PCs and it worked fine.

Edited August 14, 2015 by RFS

[RFS]

...except that M$ has recorded a hash from his now defunct HDD, so the total hash for his machine differs and M$ won't activate the new version

 

Yes - but as long as it's the same motherboard it should activate automatically.  HDD changes do not invalidate the licence. The worst that can happen is that he needs to call the MS licence hot-line.

Edited August 14, 2015 by RFS

[melmerby]

Once your W10 upgrade is complete and activated, your system details are recorded in the MS activation servers.  Now you can do a clean install and when it asks for the key just click on the "skip" button each item you are asked for a key.  Once the install is complete you should find you are automatically activated.  I've done a clean install this way on one of my PCs and it worked fine.

Thanks

I received a reply with the same answer from the MS forum.

 

Cheers

 

Keith

[Bibby Line]

On the Windows 10 topic, has anyone had problems with Microsoft Outlook after updating to Windows 10.

 

Very recently I upgraded from Office 2003 to 2013! All went well until a few days ago.

 

I can receive emails on through Outlook but can no longer send. The strange thing is when I go through the settings routine and the programme sends a test message it seems to work with no error messages.

 

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

 

Thank you,

Eddie

[Adams442T]

Thanks

I received a reply with the same answer from the MS forum.

 

Cheers

 

Keith

I did the same.  Unfortunately it didn't prevent the, 'Critical Error - unable to access' problem that I recorded in an earlier post raising its head 3 days later.  That still isn't fixed by MS from 2 July.  I did try holding down control and then restarting.  That eventually gave me back W 10 but stripped many applications, which I have had to diligently work through re-installing.  Then I discovered that I had to bookmark many items in Google or 'Edge' as it doesn't allow me to attach them to the task bar!  A nightmare

[melmerby]

I did the same.  Unfortunately it didn't prevent the, 'Critical Error - unable to access' problem that I recorded in an earlier post raising its head 3 days later.  That still isn't fixed by MS from 2 July.  I did try holding down control and then restarting.  That eventually gave me back W 10 but stripped many applications, which I have had to diligently work through re-installing.  Then I discovered that I had to bookmark many items in Google or 'Edge' as it doesn't allow me to attach them to the task bar!  A nightmare

My clean install went through faultlessly

 

On a new 1TB HDD partitioned at 250GB for Windows it took less than 30 mins start to stop, I'm impressed!

Apart from having to "skip" or "not now" several times when the key was asked for it was easy.

When I checked "activation" on Control panel at the end it said it was already activated - great.

 

I then installed my Norton Security again from scratch and using my account page I removed the "old" license fron this PC and the re-activated it as a new install.

 

I'm now posting this from ithe PC

 

Cheers  Hope you get yours sorted

 

Keith

[GoingUnderground]

If you've reserved your copy of Win 10, and are on 7 or 8/8.1, but don't now want 10, then just cancel your reservation, as described below. My daughter has not reserved Win 10 on her PC and it isn't showing any signs of trying to update to 10 when I was using it last night, even though it does have the magic KB3035583 installed, but it is set to download and apply updates manually.

 

To cancel your reservation, click on the Win 10 icon in the system tray. When the "Get Windows 10" window opens, click on the "hamburger" icon (the 3 horizontal parallel lines) in the top left of the window, and a menu will drop down which will include an option "View Confirmation", click on that, and in the new screen that opens there will be towards the bottom left in blue letters the words "Cancel Reservation". Click on that to cancel your reservation of Win 10.

 

If you want to uninstall KB3035583, that is easy to do yourself. If you have reserved Win 10, but have decided you don't want it after all, then first cancel your reservation as described above, or Microsoft will keep thinking that you want it, and you do need to use the Get Windows 10 program installed by KB3035583 to cancel the reservation.

 

Now you can uninstall KB3035583, and to do that you open "Control Panel" from the "Start" menu, select "Programs", then the "Programs & Features" option. When the list of installed programs appears, click on "View Installed Updates" on the left of the Control Panel screen to see a list of all the updates that have been installed on your PC. All the various updates are grouped together by program/application, and there will be a heading "Microsoft Windows" followed by a number, (the number of updates that have been installed), and below that a list of all the updates that have been applied to Windows on your PC.

 

In that list will be an item "Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3035583)", click on it to select/highlight it, and at the panel above the list will now include an "Uninstall" option as well as the "Organise" option that was there when you went to that screen. Click on "Uninstall, and the offending KB3035583 should be uninstalled. I haven't tried this as I do want Win 10, but this is the normal procedure to uninstall a Program or Update so it should (famous last words) work.

 

Having uninstalled it, you might need to make sure that you change your Windows Update options to "Notify me when updates are ready to download" so that you can choose which updates Windows installs just in case it tries to reinstall KB3035583 again. 

Edited August 16, 2015 by GoingUnderground

[GoingUnderground]

On the Windows 10 topic, has anyone had problems with Microsoft Outlook after updating to Windows 10.

 

Very recently I upgraded from Office 2003 to 2013! All went well until a few days ago.

 

I can receive emails on through Outlook but can no longer send. The strange thing is when I go through the settings routine and the programme sends a test message it seems to work with no error messages.

 

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

 

Thank you,

Eddie

 

I don't use Outlook. I use the Mail and Calendar apps.

[GoingUnderground]

I thought I'd give it a go last night, currently on W7 here.

 

I got a box up with a whirly circle thing and a "working on it now" message...it stayed like that for nearly 3 hours before I lost hope and baled out.

Having read a few negative points from various sources today I think I'll give it a miss, for the time being at least...

 

What was probably taking so long was downloading the Win 10 update itself as it is between 2 and 3Gb in size, the download for my 7 Pro 64 Bit was 2.6Gb. I downloaded an ISO file of Win 10 64 Bit to give me a clean reinstall media should I ever need it, and the 64 bit version is over 3Gb and it took several hours even over a BT FTTC ( the one that us poor folks in the sticks have to use as BT will never run fibre into our homes) broadband line.

[Free At Last]

I set up my last desktop pc with a clean install of Win 7 plus all the updates, accepted the Win 10 update then was told that it does not support the CPU. Never mind, kept me occupied for a good few hours.

[emt_911]

If you've reserved your copy of Win 10, and are on 7 or 8/8.1, but don't now want 10, then just cancel your reservation, as described below. My daughter has not reserved Win 10 on her PC and it isn't showing any signs of trying to update to 10 when I was using it last night, even though it does have the magic KB3035583 installed, but it is set to download and apply updates manually.

 

To cancel your reservation, click on the Win 10 icon in the system tray. When the "Get Windows 10" window opens, click on the "hamburger" icon (the 3 horizontal parallel lines) in the top left of the window, and a menu will drop down which will include an option "View Confirmation", click on that, and in the new screen that opens there will be towards the bottom left in blue letters the words "Cancel Reservation". Click on that to cancel your reservation of Win 10.

 

If you want to uninstall KB3035583, that is easy to do yourself. If you have reserved Win 10, but have decided you don't want it after all, then first cancel your reservation as described above, or Microsoft will keep thinking that you want it, and you do need to use the Get Windows 10 program installed by KB3035583 to cancel the reservation.

 

Now you can uninstall KB3035583, and to do that you open "Control Panel" from the "Start" menu, select "Programs", then the "Programs & Features" option. When the list of installed programs appears, click on "View Installed Updates" on the left of the Control Panel screen to see a list of all the updates that have been installed on your PC. All the various updates are grouped together by program/application, and there will be a heading "Microsoft Windows" followed by a number, (the number of updates that have been installed), and below that a list of all the updates that have been applied to Windows on your PC.

 

In that list will be an item "Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3035583)", click on it to select/highlight it, and at the panel above the list will now include an "Uninstall" option as well as the "Organise" option that was there when you went to that screen. Click on "Uninstall, and the offending KB3035583 should be uninstalled. I haven't tried this as I do want Win 10, but this is the normal procedure to uninstall a Program or Update so it should (famous last words) work.

 

Having uninstalled it, you might need to make sure that you change your Windows Update options to "Notify me when updates are ready to download" so that you can choose which updates Windows installs just in case it tries to reinstall KB3035583 again. 

I've done this on a laptop that I use for work. It worked perfectly and no more notifications

[raymw]

Hi Pete,
 
Sometimes it is a bios setting, not a cpu problem. If you go to http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and download the appropriate version. You may be able to install from cd or usb stick (follow the links on that page to make a usb/cd version).

 

Best wishes,

 

Ray